Most of what was said regarding my stance on Sneasel has been said already. Sneasel's effect on the metagame is unhealthy, not broken, and honestly I'm fine with its presence in the metagame. I don't think the whole broken beats broken logic applies to Sneasel and the many things that could be 'potentially broken' following its departure. This is mostly because Sneasel is objectively not broken neither are the things that it traps because Pokemon like Sigilyph, Delphox, and Heliolisk all have checks outside of Sneasel. Sneasel is a very easy to use, low-risk mon when you're clicking Knock Off, but when it comes to actually attempting to trap things, it can mean the difference between taking out a key target or losing Sneasel. It's that reason plus its need for hazard control that makes Sneasel hardly a splashable Pokemon. Of the teams I've been making recently, only about 2/10 of the teams have Sneasel because it requires a specific framework that ensures it has counterplay for the various things that take advantage of it after it has trapped a Pokemon.
The current NU metagame has several Sneasel checks, all Pokemon that are good in their own regards outside of Sneasel and we still have setup sweepers that are capable of punishing Sneasel like Klinklang, Scrafty, Toxicroak and so on. I don't really think its necessarily a bad thing that Sneasel is able to Knock Off items of stuff like Steelix, Hariyama, or non-Z Incineroar. Other trappers that would take its place if Sneasel were to get banned, like Liepard or Absol as an examples also have that very same trait of removing items and still trap a good chunk of the targets that Sneasel already can deal with. At first I was proban before and going into this test, but I feel that the metagame wouldn't change all that much because teams that need Sneasel's trapping capabilities still have options, albeit not as effective.
Another point I'd like to touch on is that something that punishes the usage of certain Pokemon isn't necessarily a bad thing. Just as an example, in most OU tiers there's Pokemon like Tyranitar and Weavile that do the same thing of trapping specific targets, but Pokemon that Latios and Tornadus are still viable despite their presence because they have ways around those trappers. I'm not usually a fan of analogies that compare other metagames, but I do feel this applies in the same sense here because the Pokemon Sneasel traps are viable and have ways around it in a similar manner; if Sneasel trapped Pokemon at no risk, I would sure as hell vote to ban it, otherwise my stance is to keep it around in NU. Sure there are Pokemon that can be better without its presence, but increasing the viability of Pokemon that are already effective at the cost of causing yet another domino effect on tiering is not the direction I'd like NU to take.
The current NU metagame has several Sneasel checks, all Pokemon that are good in their own regards outside of Sneasel and we still have setup sweepers that are capable of punishing Sneasel like Klinklang, Scrafty, Toxicroak and so on. I don't really think its necessarily a bad thing that Sneasel is able to Knock Off items of stuff like Steelix, Hariyama, or non-Z Incineroar. Other trappers that would take its place if Sneasel were to get banned, like Liepard or Absol as an examples also have that very same trait of removing items and still trap a good chunk of the targets that Sneasel already can deal with. At first I was proban before and going into this test, but I feel that the metagame wouldn't change all that much because teams that need Sneasel's trapping capabilities still have options, albeit not as effective.
Another point I'd like to touch on is that something that punishes the usage of certain Pokemon isn't necessarily a bad thing. Just as an example, in most OU tiers there's Pokemon like Tyranitar and Weavile that do the same thing of trapping specific targets, but Pokemon that Latios and Tornadus are still viable despite their presence because they have ways around those trappers. I'm not usually a fan of analogies that compare other metagames, but I do feel this applies in the same sense here because the Pokemon Sneasel traps are viable and have ways around it in a similar manner; if Sneasel trapped Pokemon at no risk, I would sure as hell vote to ban it, otherwise my stance is to keep it around in NU. Sure there are Pokemon that can be better without its presence, but increasing the viability of Pokemon that are already effective at the cost of causing yet another domino effect on tiering is not the direction I'd like NU to take.
